When the Mets acquired Green, in the same Dec. 11 three-way trade that made J.J. Putz a Met, they spoke excitedly of Green's potential.

And in order for Green to achieve that potential, club officials stressed, they needed to keep him fresh. You need only look at the righthander's 2008 splits - 2.72 ERA in the first half, 8.65 in the second half - to confirm their thinking.

...Instead, Green has made 11 appearances in the Mets' first 20 games, putting him on a pace for a career-high 89 games. Yes, it's early. Yet that's kind of the point, isn't it? Let the guy ease his way into the grind of the season?

Take Monday night's game, a 7-1 laugher over the Marlins. John Maine provided six strong innings, and you can understand why Manuel quit while he was ahead there, given how poorly Maine had been pitching. However, Manuel handed that 6-1 lead to Green, who then handed the baton to Putz and Francisco Rodriguez. Your three top relievers in a game that wasn't particularly close? Yeesh.

Monday's use of K-Rod and Putz in the latter innings confused me initially, but made sense when you realized that Putz had pitch twice and K-Rod only once in the prior week. That was Manuel getting them work because the Mets' recent play hasn't created much use for them.

But this is now the second outing in a week in which Sean Green imploded on the mound, and is the first sign of trouble I've seen from the Mets bullpen. It's too early to sound the alarms, but Davidoff may be right in that this could be the first indicator of what's to come for the bullpen. I'm not sure who would get the work if not Green Put more weight on Parnell and Stokes? They've pitched as much as Green thus far.

The Mets are barely treading water right now. If the bullpen starts to falter, they're in A LOT of trouble.